Colonel Oscar Payne Cleaver

Oscar Payne Cleaver was born on January 8, 1905, to Samuel Albert and Dora Shirley Cleaver. A Hart County, Kentucky, native, Oscar graduated from Horse Cave High School. He then moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to attend Georgia Institute of Technology in 1924. He later earned his master’s degree in electrical engineering with a minor in drama from Yale University in 1930.

After graduation, Oscar worked for Westinghouse as a lighting engineer. In 1942, he entered the Army Corps of Engineers and continued as a reserve officer. He retired as a full colonel in 1964. In his 25 years as a lighting expert at the Engineer Research and Development Laboratories at Fort Belvoir, he made significant contributions toward the development of night vision.

Oscar had a prolific career outside of the military as well. He is known as the inventor of the automatic lighting system for the theater, the modern version of which is used by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was co-author of Stage Lighting, which became a standard work for theatrical lighting. As an engineer for Westinghouse, he helped develop the lighting system used for spectacular light and fountain display, which was a major attraction at the 1939 World’s Fair. That same year he was sent to Hollywood to assist in solving lighting problems involved with the filming of the motion picture Gone With the Wind.

Oscar was also active in the WKU community. He was a generous supporter of the university and was honored as a Distinguished Honorary Alumnus of WKU. He passed away in Florida on April 29, 1996.

To further give back, he established the Colonel Oscar Payne Cleaver Scholarship Fund. The fund assists deserving WKU students who are majoring in theatre and are from Hart County, Kentucky. Through this fund, Oscar’s legacy lives on in perpetuity.